Major assumptions here, with very little data in defense. I disagree and wholeheartedly. You're taking many things out of context and using lines like, "According to major automotive search verticals..." Which verticals would those be... how about some hard data to support this claim? It's all about the user experience to Google and that includes the manner in which a site displays and easy access to all content, plus speed. Responsive design has been around for ages, it's just now catching fire in the web world. Site Speed Claim...? Each site is built differently, with different amounts of media, plugins and code that need to be loaded, etc. No one should make general, blanket statements, such as you have. I've a number of responsive sites up and running and they perform excellently on all devices. All of the sites we've launched have gone up in speed, VDP views and rankings. Additionally, converting a site to a RWD site doesn't necessarily require a complete rebuild, as many claim. It greatly depends on the pre-existing website structure. You've failed to mention that using a single URL for a piece of content makes it easier for your users to interact with, share, and link to your content, and a single URL for the content helps Google's algorithms assign the indexing properties for the content. Take, for example, a mobile user who shares content from a mobile site with a friend on Facebook who then accesses that content using a desktop, which results in that user viewing a stripped down mobile site on their desktop. This creates a less than optimal user-experience, and because of the large emphasis Google is now placing on user-experience as a ranking factor, this is essential to take into account with regards to SEO. No redirection is needed for users to get to the device-optimized view, which reduces loading time. Also, user agent-based redirection is error-prone and can degrade your site's user experience. See: https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/redirects. It saves resources for both your site and Google's crawlers. For responsive web design pages, any Googlebot user agents needs to crawl your pages once, as opposed to crawling multiple times with different user agents, to retrieve your content. This improvement in crawling efficiency can indirectly help Google index more of the site's contents and keep it appropriately fresh. Return visitors are NOT reduced using Responsive Web Design. Where is your data to prove such a statement...? What about accessing blog content? Through RWD, it's easy for Google to crawl a great amount of data with the same URL, whereas more mobile site platforms make it much more difficult, just in general. The indexing aspect as well as being able to manipulate many aspects of content marketing, such as using a variety of plugins to accelerate Mobile SEO, which is NOT Global / National or Local (this should be highly noted). A standalone application only creates the need for further marketing (additional costs). You're assuming all of your website users will install it. Conclusion: You have a better opportunity to convert leads via a single Responsive Site.

Amir, Are you simply taking this stance because your platform ISN'T responsive? You've made some broad assumptions with your breakdown of RWD which appear to be more of anxiety heightening type of statements than anything. Having worked with both type of platforms from different vendors, at the end of the day the performance of the site will be directly affected by the ability to optimize effectively, the quality of the content & most importantly, the merchandising efforts - not because of it being AWD or RWD. Other factors include overall website support, local directory optimization & other customization features - and more. Dealers should be making their decisions on those factors, not merely based on whether the platform is adaptive or responsive.

Great post Eric! Exactly... Although, I can see why Amir would say that, in that he sells some form of Mobile Site development. LOL! ;-)

Interesting argument, if seemingly faulty assumptions. The scale still weighs heavily towards a well-designed, mobile-first responsive design. You've made some strong points though. I'd like to see more real data. For instance, show me the same site under both designs. You claim to know the reason Amazon, Wal*Mart, and Zappos haven't switched to a multi-device environment. I thought it was because of the success of their app-based strategy. Can you provide some sources for your info?

"Your mobile experience will be slower for your visitors. The amount of time people spend on your mobile site will be less and the number of VDPs viewed by a visitor will be less Return visits will be reduced" Where is the data from that supports the above claims? I see the graph for the slower load times but where is this data from? How many sites were surveyed? How was this collected?There doesn't seem to be any hard data in this article to support your "hard facts" - sounds like your/your company's opinion. Would love to see any data you have collected.

All you say is 100% correct. It comes down to how committed is the dealer and the marketer. If you want a simple low cost solution and your number 1 goal is not the maximum conversion that can be had. Then RWD is the answer. However if you want maximum opportunities and advanced digital strategies then it will take more work and your tools of choice will be those of Apple, Amazon and the leading e-commerce businesses... which is not rwd. I say this based on facts, experience and research. I can also say based on fact that our firm spends more in search, display, Retargeting and video per client so we test everything. I am confident rwd or the like will be the tool of choice eventually but presently it's not. I wish it was since it would cut our production time and labor cost by 50%. Therefore we would increase profits. We can just not recommended rwd yet with our clients best interest. Paul Potratz Www.PPADV.com

Alexander Lau, Here are some responses to your comment: SPEED Please send over some of the responsive sites that you are running and we will conduct some tests on the overall speed. Particularly our mobile conversion team looks at the speed it takes for a smartphone visitor to search inventory and find/view a car. If your responsive websites utilize traditional browser "paging" then they will likely significantly slower due to the page tear down and rebuild. SOCIAL SHARING Social share buttons on a mobile web app (as in with our platform) reference a traditional "crawlable" page. This sharing issue you mention does not exist if handled correctly. REDIRECTION Server-side redirection is preferred. This type of redirection has no real impact on site load time as the redirect occurs on the server-side (ie: almost instantaneously). SAVING RESOURCES WITH RESPONSIVE? In just about all cases, a responsive website will utilize more bandwidth and more resources per visitor than an optimized mobile web platform. I am not sure why you would be concerned with saving Google’s resources (for their web crawler). The only resource that should really matter is the mobile visitor’s bandwidth. Responsive sites will require more bandwidth which will slow down the entire browsing experience. RETURN VISITORS Higher per-visitor conversion rates means more return visitors (a general rule to consider when looking at conversions and return visitor rates). If smartphone visitors like and engage your platform more, they are inevitably (on average) more likely to return. Our data has come from comparisons between our platform and most of the major providers that we have data for; however, we would be glad to run some A/B tests on some of the dealers you work with so that you can see for yourself. STANDALONE APPLICATION? I think you may be confused as to what we mean by an optimized mobile web app. There is no installation with this type of platform, this is simply a mobile website that has been built like a native app - see our demo from your smartphone for an example.

@Alexander - You nailed it in both of your posts. This is a thinly veiled attempt to sell us the idea that car dealers need a mobile app. Amir lost me with this quote: "Unfortunately, for the digital automotive industry, a responsive website is not the solution a dealership needs; it is just the next snake oil in a long line of promises that "will work." The snake oil in this article is that dealers need an app. Car dealer apps fall into the category that do not solve a customers problem. Read this great article published today "Why Nobody Uses Your App"http://www.fastcodesign.com/3033092/googles-6-reasons-why-nobody-uses-your-app?partner=rss

Thank you for all of the comments! To Mr. Bill Simmons and others who have commented about a mobile app. Please note that I am absolutely NOT advocating dealers purchase a native mobile app. In fact, we are staunch advocates against dealers purchasing a native mobile application for their dealership. To clarify again, we are talking about mobile websites (that are available and loaded in a smartphone browser). There seems to be a big confusion here - again please visit the demo see what we are talking about.

One thing I see all of my comrades who are passionate about marketing do (I'll include myself in this group) is overthink the consumer experience. We try to find balance between branding our business and connecting with people using the most relevant platform to date. The problem is we all get caught up in insignificant details and fail to meet the basic needs of someone who is shopping our websites. We've become so absorbed with our own self-importance that we fail to understand that our website visitors could care less about reading why our business might be the best. These visitors are shopping a dozen dealers. Give them something visually unique yet efficient to find what they are looking for and people will remember you. That's what I like about the demo site from this post. It's unique, simple, and easy to navigate. Now if we can extend that same out of the box simplicity to our sales process, we all might be able to retire somewhere on the good side of 80 years old Keep in mind...I'm purely looking at this from the viewpoint of someone navigating this website as a shopper. I'm not taking into consideration everything it takes to get someone to find the site or land on relevant pages through search.

I really appreciate well-written and researched articles and I can totally understand where you're coming from and why you're posting about it. I was there. It was less than a year ago that I promoted the concept of mobile and adaptive websites over responsive, but times have changed. The bottom line is this: mobile and adaptive are better than BAD responsive websites. I started promoting responsive over two years ago to my former company, practically begging them to head in that direction. Then, I switched gears because the responsive sites I saw in the automotive industry a year ago were horrendous. Now, I'm back supporting them because I have seen a handful of vendors who are doing it right. Most are still doing it wrong, but some that I've seen clearly outperform in traffic, leads, organic search rankings, Google PageSpeed Insights, and Webmaster Tool errors. Again, I'll agree with your points when comparing to the majority of responsive dealer websites that I've seen, but the ones that are coded properly are far better than any mobile website out there.

There are great comments here!

We have been on Dealerfire's RWD platform since April and it's been fantastic. Our traffic is up, our conversions are up and we have consistency across all platforms. The additional digital marketing strategy and efforts that we employ with our partners at DealerFire have been instrumental in our success as well. I think there are a lot of valid points on this thread and like any new technology or process, the bugs have to get worked out. Dealerfire has been on the ball in this respect, big time. With that said, Google is saying that responsive is the future and that is what they are planning around so there is added incentive to implement this technology. In the end, we've been very happy with our decision and our Responsive websites from Dealerfire.

I'm unsure of the basis for many of the comments supporting Amir's claims, since he has absolutely no hard data as evidence. JD Rucker brings up an extremely good point. At WorldDealer, we struggled with moving on to RWD, we were fine with AWD for a number of different reasons (mostly from a resource standpoint and unbeknownst clients). I've done much research in order to justify the move and it's paying off handsomely for us and our clients. I'll gladly be your Huckleberry! Fine and dandy... I'll throw myself to your test for Kelly Automotive in the Allentown & Bethlehem area and Findlay Toyota in the Las Vegas region. Kelly Automotive (93/100) Desktop @ 1.9 seconds = http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/cmQGRn/http://kellycar.com/ Mobile @ 4.5 seconds = http://www.websitetest.com/ui/tests/53c7d8a70c53723b36000036 Findlay Toyota (81/100) Desktop @ 6.1 seconds = http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/diQJfT/http://findlaytoyota.com Mobile @ 2.3 seconds = http://www.websitetest.com/ui/tests/53c7d0f48b5f0203f800001d/samples/53c7d193f5c65e19750006ad I'll gladly take both of those scores (regardless of what metrics they are using in their comparative method), considering the amount of data that has to be loaded on an average automotive retail site. Shall I do more for you? Remember, applications like a chat mechanism and Google Analytics (somewhat of a hypocrisy, because of Google's site speed ranking variable, within their overall algorithmic equation), slows down any site. Website providers should be using passive analytics, which requires no need to load scripts or tags (something we are working on specifically for the automotive retail vertical), but that's an entirely different subject. In fact, the mobile site would have loaded quicker, if not for the chat mechanism. IMO, that shouldn't be on the mobile site, I showed in the above example. At least this claptrap of an article shined our error to me. Additionally, arguing with the likes of Google...? You're going to end up losing that battle, each and every time. I've no absolute data to back this up, however, the likelihood of Googlebot ranking responsive sites ahead of websites using, what I like to term as "chopped up" code and 3rd party buggery, is highly unlikely. Regardless of what Matt Cutts and the like proclaim in their blogs, it is my educated guess they're moving entirely in this directional pattern. Amir, I believe you're arguing for the sake of your own wares, as a few individuals and I have highlighted. That's all good and fine, I get the strategy. However, don't act as if RWD is "The Wrong Choice for Dealers." That's a rubbish statement and it should, in fact, be ignored. A

Hello Rebecca, I would be a hypocrite to state numbers. I do not have definitive proof, but any 3rd party script generally causes a site to load slower. Granted, there are a load of variables when it comes to total site load, as previously mentioned, but a well-designed chat application isn't necessarily something that kills the overall load time (or what is perceived as good benchmark load time = which can be argued, especially for automotive sites), but that's the general rule of thumb. In the Findlay instance above, below are two of the things that slowed down the load, which makes sense. Plus, a bunch of slider / carousel images that weren't saved for web properly. chat.js www.clientconnexion.com/clients/findl… Funny, the Google API @ https://translate.googleapis.com/translate_static/css/translateelement.css is what slowed it down the most.

Just for fun, another RWD site at Kelly Nissan of Route 33: Desktop at 2.3 seconds = http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/bQiaqf/http://kellynissanofroute33.com/ Mobile @ 3.745 = http://www.websitetest.com/ui/tests/53c805118b5f0251df000005

Put aside the content of the original post. Has anyone tried navigating the sites mentioned in the comments in the mindset of a shopper? They are clunky, completely non-engaging, and I found myself wanting instantly leave. Keep in mind my own website is no gem either. Regardless of OP's commentary, he has developed a site that is more effective in engaging a shopper. I'm looking at strict shopper experience. Amir's site has it's flaws, but it has the foundation of something I personally would prefer to navigate. Simplicity is an art form and it is lost in automotive marketing. WE ARE ALL TRYING TOO HARD. Nobody cares about why so-and-so dealer is better than the other. Very rarely are people going to their local dealer's SEO model pages to read why the Explorer is better than the Grand Cherokee. We are all guilty of over-complicating the user experience to game the SEO system or overbrand ourselves. Myself included! I've spent countless hours creating SEO content and have sung my own dealership's praises on my website more times than I can count. I have to chalk up the simplicity and logical navigation on Amir's site. It looks like it would almost be usable on an Android wear device. I want to see some website companies step back from the minutiae and deliver a solid user experience that brands my business and executes the basic functions important to a local dealership website. Once you can promise that, I'm a customer for life!

And another for Stuckey Ford Subaru: Desktop @ 4.06 seconds = http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/bIJ56U/http://stuckeyforyou.com/ Mobile @ 6.0 seconds = http://www.websitetest.com/ui/tests/53c818750c5372151400001e (however, that's an average taken from many devices and it's only high because of the slider on the iPhone5, which we will fix soon)

@Larry, unsure what examples you're referring to here, but we user test all of our sites, before launching, and continuously A / B, Multivariate and Split test as we update. Beside, that's your subjective opinion. The sites we've produced have been so dumbed down, it's crazy. However, dealers will fight with reason and logic, based upon user testing. Therefore, many times we end jamming too much content in places it doesn't belong. That's an issue for any website provider. Now, I'm all for a thread on your offshoot subject, if you want to start one on Instructional Design or User-Centered Design or User-experience in relation to automotive retail interfaces, etc. Instructional Design = the practice of creating instructional experiences which make the acquisition of knowledge and skill more efficient, effective, and appealing. The process consists broadly of determining the current state and needs of the learner, defining the end goal of instruction, and creating some "intervention" to assist in the transition. OR User-centered design (UCD) = process (not restricted to interfaces or technologies) in which the needs, wants, and limitations of end users of a product, service or process are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process. User-centered design can be characterized as a multi-stage problem solving process that not only requires designers to analyse and foresee how users are likely to use a product, but also to test the validity of their assumptions with regard to user behavior in real world tests with actual users. OR User experience = a person's behaviors, attitudes, and emotions about using a particular product, system or service. User experience includes the practical, experiential, effective, meaningful and valuable aspects of human-computer interaction and product ownership. In addition, SEO comments. Content has to be intelligible. However, the way to get your content to perform (based upon research and analysis), etc. is an art in itself. Write all the intelligible content possible, but if one makes assumptions, sometimes presumptions, on what one feels or thinks will rank, without analysis, you're doing it incorrectly. What does Google want? They want relevant, real content on the internet that people want to read and tell other people about. If Google doesn’t bring you the most relevant content when you search, they aren’t doing their job. So by definition, even the word Search Engine Optimization (SEO) means to “game” the Google search engines (and others) to get your valuable content ranked higher than it would be if left alone to the forces of the Web. The bottom line is that all external SEO efforts are counterfeit other than one: Writing, designing, recording, or videoing real and relevant content that benefits those who search. SEO of any kind is pursued by gaming the system. There is nothing “natural” about any form of SEO. The fundamental concept of SEO is exploiting a flaw in a search engine’s ranking algorithm. The difference between white and black hat tactics is merely a function of where Google decides to draw a line, and this line is at least somewhat arbitrary. Google's goal is to confuse search engine optimization (SEO) efforts and to uncover aggressive SEO techniques through delaying, or obfuscating results from SEO changes being made.

On the SEO note, and maybe I am overstating the obvious, but you had better have an SEO CRM that measures Global, Local and Mobile performance data, because they are very different. RWD has skyrocketed client mobile numbers and conversions.This includes leads captured through long-tail keyword attacks through various landing pages, not just the home page. Such as VDPs, showroom pages, blog pages, etc. The path analysis doesn't lie. With nearly 15,000 conversion in 60 days, in a small market, RWD works very well IMO. http://i.imgur.com/MXJvUb7.jpg

Yes my opinions are subjective...not too dissimilar to the user base that you job is to engage. I navigated each site mentioned in this post just to experience it and try to find specific inventory. I usually found myself leaving very quickly. You are exemplifying everything I'm talking about as a marketer. You are so caught up in defending the small details, but try using your "Car Finder". I attempted to find a pre-owned vehicle on the Stuckey site. Click the vehicles drop down, select "preowned" and then the drop down still says "new vehicles". Next click "choose a make", then "pre-owned vehicles" appears on the drop down, but the vehicle i select isn't showing. It's frustrating from a user perspective. That is quite simply not subjective...most people will not enjoy what it takes to find inventory on this site. I understand why you may be defensive. I'm not trying to attack your ability to develop website since there are some great elements to your site. I quite simply find it difficult to get to specific inventory on any of the sites mentioned by the community. I can't stand even navigating my own mobile site! Don't take any of this personally. It's my opinion and not backed by any real data. It's simply observations made from a purely user standpoint. I'm an avid consumer and have a great feel for where the market is going.

Larry, actually I highly appreciate your comments. Albeit subjective, your opinion has value, because you are a user and have given me insight to an issue. Personally, I do not design that interface and will make a suggestion to our project manager. You're right, IMO. The usability could be made much better and there's always room to improve. We try and use user data in order to make decisions, which is logical. I suppose I took offense to this article, just in general, because we have produced RWD sites that do in fact convert. Perhaps we are among a small group (automotive website providers) that are successfully using Bootstrap, Skeleton and Foundation. I have no idea... DealerFire and DealerOn have nice platforms as well. Here is a nice responsive framework overview @ http://responsive.vermilion.com/compare.php, if anyone is interested...?

@Alexander...I will say I could never do what you do. You can have a magnificent platform, but then us, the dealers get involved and want to add things eventually making the site unusable. Source: I'VE DONE THIS. The article is definitely inflammatory and not backed up with raw data. I hijacked the discussion because I identified one element that I enjoyed on Amir's site and that is the simplicity and inventory navigation. What I ultimately want to accomplish is for all of us to step back from our keyboards and think like real customers. It's hard to do when we dig into our analytics and dissect every keystroke that happens on our sites. Let's all keep on innovating shit and not forget to create a stellar user experience.

Agreed, I also think Amir's taxonomy is usable and navigation is very clean = quality. Plus, if he has clients converting, there is no sense in reinventing the wheel, just because everyone else is doing RWD. In essence, if it's not broken forget about fixing it.It's not that RWD fails to do the same. We just haven't put it into place, as of yet. There are definitely a bunch of RWD sites that have outstanding menu systems. Mind you, frameworks like Bootstrap and Foundation are being updated and often. Meaning, this is just the tip of the iceberg. BTW, we can all agree to disagree and still be friends. A lot of the time, static text gives an incorrect tone. :-)

I suppose we see the end result of this article folks. BTW, Paul Potratz is wrong as well, his comment also lacks data and statistics to support this extremely weak claim.

aw, DealerFire was at MozCon? Wish I had known, we could have hung out and chatted auto...

I’m happy to see that this article has generated some healthy conversation! To clarify, Car Pursuit's sole focus is to design, test, and research mobile web technologies and mobile-local advertising techniques to ultimately give dealerships the edge. This article was written to simply provide some insight into what our team has found through almost 3 years of conversion rate optimization testing. Using our own mobile-focused analytics framework, we are able to constantly A/B test, tweak, and modify our platform to improve overall lead & call generation. Of course we still have a long way to go; however, throughout our evolution we have learned a lot as we run comparisons with other mobile web providers. The research and side-by-side testing we conduct gives us a lot of data and insight into how mobile customers shop and what they need to ultimately convert into a lead. We did our best to not make a "thinly-veiled" sales article because anyone who is interested in more information will likely ask. But, we do have a product and a perspective that are linked together as do any vendor and this is the first article we've written that features our product heavily. Ultimately, we just want dealerships to recognize the mobile/desktop divide and give more thought into their digital purchase rather than accepting "the next big thing." We've chosen to build a stand-alone mobile web platform (not native app) rather than a responsive site because our work in automotive as well as various other industries has given us the evidence we need to verify its superiority when it comes to leads/calls per unique visitor, time on site, return visitors, and increased service scheduling usage. Our argument is from a lead-generation perspective; mobile traffic is higher than ever before and requires dealerships to have a mobile-specific offering in order to capture as many quality leads as possible. Throwing out all the technical talk, common sense would tell us that: 1. Mobile customers are at a different stage in the buying process than a desktop user and thus have different needs (different information, different promotions, and even different inventory suggestions based on shopping habits). 2. Mobile screens are smaller and the internet speeds are inconsistent. Anything that will make the process of navigating, finding directions, making calls, and submitting leads much faster will cause people to stick around longer, return more, and ultimately submit more leads. 3. If your mobile platform content is directly tied to your desktop platform, there is only so much you can do to customize your offering and deliver content to the user that is mobile-specific (without an on-staff IT developer or overly catering software vendor). 4. Let's be honest, your company blog is not as important to a mobile customer. It’s great for SEO and it’s great for helping customers who are deep in the research stage but mobile users are not looking for blog posts. If your site were only a blog, I would be recommending a responsive system rather than stand-alone. 5. If you are looking for the simplest way to just have a website and a mobile site, responsive is an easy option. If you are interested in generating more leads from a specific type of shopper, it will require a more specific solution. SPEED TESTS FOR MR. ALEXANDER LAU Thanks for sending the data over! As I mentioned, initial load time is actually only one of the factors to consider when looking at a websites overall speed. It is VERY important to consider the navigation speed to search through the inventory. With that said we did run a comparison of our platform using the same tools you mentioned. It appears that our platform does in fact load more than 10 times faster than all of the examples you provided: CARPURSUIT DEMO PLATFORM RESULTS Frontend Time To Display = 338 ms Frontend Time To Interact = 643 ms Total Download = 0.328 megabytes Yotta Score = 99th percentile - http://www.websitetest.com/ui/tests/53c9491a8b5f02441b000012 THE RESULTS YOU POSTED Stuckey Ford Subaru Frontend Time To Display = 6445 ms Frontend Time To Interact = 9978 ms Total Download = 2.8 megabytes Yotta Score = 34th percentile - http://www.websitetest.com/ui/tests/53c818750c5372151400001e ----------- Kelly Automotive Frontend Time To Display = 4467 ms Frontend Time To Interact = 8529 ms Total Download = 2.3 megabytes Yotta Score = 37th percentile - http://www.websitetest.com/ui/tests/53c7d8a70c53723b36000036 ----------- Findlay Toyota Frontend Time To Display = 5318 ms Frontend Time To Interact = 7009 ms Total Download = 2.3 megabytes Yotta Score = 36th percentile - http://www.websitetest.com/ui/tests/53c7d8a70c53723b36000036 ----------- Kelly Nissan Frontend Time To Display = 3745 ms Frontend Time To Interact = 6973 ms Total Download = 1.8 megabytes Yotta Score = 38th percentile - http://www.websitetest.com/ui/tests/53c805118b5f0251df000005 ---------- You can see that all of the responsive site examples you provided have an initial load of over 1.8 - 2.8 megabytes compared to our platform that loads with only 328 kilobytes. This is actually in line with the points that were made in the article about speed issues when it comes to responsive design.

You keep talking about the shopping habits of automotive customers, yet have no data to back up your claims. Lead generation, our clients see a higher ROI than they did using AWD, which included stand alone mobile sites. That is being measured daily. You can do everything in RWD that can be done with a separate mobile website. It ABSOLUTELY can be customized according to any and all requirements. It's not rocket science to run A / B, Multivariate and Split testing on any digital interface, if it's being measured properly. That has nothing to do with the difference between Mobile and RWD sites. Remember, you'll be paying more to have a desktop and mobile version. That's only the cost factor. As for the speed differentials you've mentioned, that's fine. The percentiles are what they are, but remember, most automotive sites are in that same bracket and frankly most are much worse. There was a recent discussion at http://internetsales20group.com, on this very discussion and the reality, most of the larger sites flunked, both on desktop and mobile. I will take 2 to 3 seconds of load time, any day of the week. Those are 3rd party scripts bogging down the load speed, as I had mentioned previously, not the framework. Therefore, your test speed argument is poorly supported. Additionally, CSS frameworks like Bootstrap, Foundation and Skeleton are being constantly updated and that only benefits the likes of RWD. It's only a matter of time before many of the issues that cause minor glitches in RWD sites are fixed, such as far too large CSS files being reduced on load, etc. It's out there now actually... http://www.sitepoint.com/complete-guide-reducing-page-weight. Pre-processors such as Sass, LESS and Stylus can do the hard work for you. Build tools including Grunt.js or Gulp can automate your workflow or, if you’d prefer a GUI, Koala provides a free cross-platform application, etc. Are you saying mobile version site content isn't important...? There is an entirely separate requirement for Mobile SEO. Are you taking that into consideration? Another area of great ROI for our clients. Example: http://i.imgur.com/MXJvUb7.jpg. Furthermore, you cannot make a blanket statement such as "Why Responsive Websites Are The Wrong Choice For Dealers" without absolute proof and you have very little to no data to back up your claim. Every site is built differently, with varying amounts of media, plugins and code that need to be loaded, etc. Some of that content is mandated by OEMs and dealers that force the content on site.

I have to agree with Mr. Lau in that there are some strong anti-responsive arguments being purported here with little or no real data to substantiate them. A client of ours was transitioned to a responsive design mid-May, and the results have been both fast and fabulous. June 2014 saw, for the newly-designed client, a year-over-year increase of 60% more traffic overall and 63% more unique visitors, with no increase in bounce rate nor lowered time on site. With respect to mobile site traffic, the responsive design garnered a 385% increase - over 4,000 additional visitors/month year-over-year, not simply reallocated traffic (as non-mobile traffic increased as well). As 65% of auto shoppers begin their path to purchase on a smartphone, we looked at changes in SEM results, and were pleased to find a 480% increase in conversions with a lower cost per click for the month of June compared to April. A responsively-designed website is slower to load only if the designer of the website did not follow best practices in file sizes and hosting... No return visitors? On the contrary, responsive web design opens the door to new levels of mobile retargeting across platforms, which is shown to increase conversion rates by up to 229%. Finally, as 98% of a dealership's prospective customers will use an average of three different mobile devices within the same day on their car search, RWD takes into account rule #1 of marketing - reduce customer burden. The claim that dealerships believe RWD is better because of uniform content across all devices because of easier navigation, easier back-end management and optimal SEO are, in fact, very true... but the content is NOT uniform. A properly designed responsive website, with no additional load time, will appear exactly as a mobile site should, and subsequently as a tablet site should. Arguing that a RWD is a viable solution only in lieu of sufficient resources to build a separate mobile site is, in essence, an attempt to upsell and encourage dealers to spend additional money on a separate website they don't need. Furthermore, there is a vast difference between a mobile-specific website and a mobile app, a vast dichotomy which seems to have been glossed over in this argument. One can NOT use "mobile website" and "app" interchangeably. The truth is that unless a dealership has already procured the undying loyalty of a customer, that app is never going to be downloaded. Apps did recently gain a new purpose in the automotive vertical - one of driver customization in relation to the release of Google Auto and its partnership with Microsoft Sync. Until widespread adoption of that technology, however, people download "apps" for lifestyle reasons, apps that will be used on a long term basis for personal or professional reasons... not for the relatively short-term duration of the car buying process. How sadly misleading for car dealers! Every argument in this blog is reliant NOT in any fact whatsoever, but in only the worst-case scenario presumption that their responsive website would be built by an entirely incompetent provider and thus have the problems asserted therein.

There is a tornado of unsubstantiated claims flying around this entire discussion. I'm beginning to see this website devolve into a platform for vendors to discredit each other's product and paint a rosy picture for their own. I have seen very little conversation from people on the dealer level. It would be great to see what dealers and internet directors have to say about this topic because it's extremely relevant. Everyone is only telling a piece of the truth. For example...Camille, you state your client witnessed a 63% increase in unique visitors. What is the source of this traffic? Organic? We see an uptick of about 3k visitors to our site in the period of time that our Pandora ad runs. That has zero to do with our website platform. What other external factors may be causing this increase? Share the URL of one of your responsive sites and I will give an honest end-user assessment the site's ability to capture an engaged buyer. Yes...there is a degree of subjectivity to my opinion, but I'm extremely keyed into consumer demand, trends, and know where the market is going. On that note...any dealers or dealer level marketing peeps want to chime in???

Hey Larry, Here is my two cents: There are horribly designed responsive sites, and there are horribly designed adaptive sites. The quality of the site is dependent on so many factors that anyone suggesting one is better than the other is either: a) selling the one they claim is better b) doesn't have enough information You could refute or assist any of these arguments if you truly worked the website. You could take a slow, clunky website and turn it into a cash cow by focusing on conversion optimization. Or you could take an optimally designed website and ruin it with an abundance of dead site links. No two websites are on a level playing field so comparing these two options is like comparing Almond Butter to Cashew Butter. They are both delicious. How about we all take this stance: response or adaptive are both GOOD. As long as you aren't behind either option, you are in good standing. Now where I see the future is predictive web design (ie. what Haystak is doing. That stuff is just plain crazy.)

@Larry Doremus Jr last post is the best one in this whole thread. Kudos @Amir Shah for writing the article. There is never such a thing as full right or full wrong when writing about technology evolution (my friend JDR said a few years ago that G+ was going to overtake FB, I still think the world of him even though he missed that one) and you knew that you were going to take shots. Thank you for starting it. Here are my 2 cents about this: "Site speed, designs, graphics, etc" are not a major concern in the long run. Vendors will figure that out. "Do you have data" Lots of people asking for data to substantiate claims. No one has enough comparative data. At best we have a few sites that provide too small of a-biased-sampling. "Google says..." that you do whatever they say because in the end there is something in it for them. I expected more from this crowd. Do what works, not what Google says. Google wants to take you in the path of more revenue for them. "Companies don't like responsive designs because they have not invested on it." Not true. Quite the opposite. As a matter of fact I would warn you to be careful and not jump too fast into a company offering responsive because right now is the shinny object. We have a responsive system, but it is too early of a stage for me to know that it will do better that our adaptive system which we have fine tuned for the last 2 years. I would look at your conversion rate before making any changes. If you are converting at 4% in correlation to your market (and remember that the numbers change depending on market aggressiveness, content, PPC, etc) ask yourself; where will responsive take me? To me responsive seems a choice and perhaps a good one to a dealer looking to risk in exchange of any improvement no matter how small. A performing dealer with probably many other areas to improve anyway, should wait 6-12 months as see how the systems grow. I have no doubt we will all be using some sort of responsive system by next year, the question is whether you are willing to go thru the grind or wait for the code to be perfected.

Who said there aren't stable RWD systems out there now? This argument on speed, it's silly. Our client competitor websites aren't any faster than ours and from the looks of how our RWD sites rank, it's really an inconsequential variable. That goes for Global, Local and Mobile indexing and I can show proof, if you'd like. The one thing that makes me laugh about the supporters for ADW, they all still sell a version of it. Vested interest, anyone....??? o_O Actually, JD Rucker is correct in his assessment and I agreed with him at the time. Facebook is going to die an ugly death and not too far off, Google+ is going to always drive indexing results. Facebook is nothing but a mere advertising platform now. Organic reach = ZERO!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-rampton/business-mobile-responsive-design_b_5267077.html But why does Google prefer responsive design? For starters, it's more efficient for Google to bot crawl the site and then index and organize all the content that is online. The reason for this is that with responsive design, all sites have just one URL and the same HTML across all devices. When a business has both a mobile site and desktop site, there will be a different URL and different HTML for each. This forces Google to crawl and index multiple versions of the same exact site. Also, when there is just one website and URL, it's much easier for users to share, engage and interact with the content on that site as compared to a site that has different pages for mobile and desktop users. Google is a fan of that as well. Why? Because what if someone shared a mobile site on a social media outlet and one of their connections viewed that mobile site on their desktop? That viewer would then be viewing a less than optimal site because it was intended for mobile. This makes the user unhappy.

We just launched a bunch of them in the Las Vegas area @ http://hendersonkia.com, http://courtesyimports.com, http://countoncourtesymazda.com, http://hendersonmitsubishi.com.

The sort of propaganda that is being used about responsive dealer websites is very similar to the propaganda used a few years ago when website providers were saying that their Flash websites were superior to ours. Have you seen any Flash websites lately? https://www.facebook.com/WorldDealer

Major assumptions here, with very little data in defense. I disagree and wholeheartedly. You're taking many things out of context and using lines like, "According to major automotive search verticals..." Which verticals would those be... how about some hard data to support this claim? It's all about the user experience to Google and that includes the manner in which a site displays and easy access to all content, plus speed. Responsive design has been around for ages, it's just now catching fire in the web world. Site Speed Claim...? Each site is built differently, with different amounts of media, plugins and code that need to be loaded, etc. No one should make general, blanket statements, such as you have. I've a number of responsive sites up and running and they perform excellently on all devices. All of the sites we've launched have gone up in speed, VDP views and rankings. Additionally, converting a site to a RWD site doesn't necessarily require a complete rebuild, as many claim. It greatly depends on the pre-existing website structure. You've failed to mention that using a single URL for a piece of content makes it easier for your users to interact with, share, and link to your content, and a single URL for the content helps Google's algorithms assign the indexing properties for the content. Take, for example, a mobile user who shares content from a mobile site with a friend on Facebook who then accesses that content using a desktop, which results in that user viewing a stripped down mobile site on their desktop. This creates a less than optimal user-experience, and because of the large emphasis Google is now placing on user-experience as a ranking factor, this is essential to take into account with regards to SEO. No redirection is needed for users to get to the device-optimized view, which reduces loading time. Also, user agent-based redirection is error-prone and can degrade your site's user experience. See: https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/redirects. It saves resources for both your site and Google's crawlers. For responsive web design pages, any Googlebot user agents needs to crawl your pages once, as opposed to crawling multiple times with different user agents, to retrieve your content. This improvement in crawling efficiency can indirectly help Google index more of the site's contents and keep it appropriately fresh. Return visitors are NOT reduced using Responsive Web Design. Where is your data to prove such a statement...? What about accessing blog content? Through RWD, it's easy for Google to crawl a great amount of data with the same URL, whereas more mobile site platforms make it much more difficult, just in general. The indexing aspect as well as being able to manipulate many aspects of content marketing, such as using a variety of plugins to accelerate Mobile SEO, which is NOT Global / National or Local (this should be highly noted). A standalone application only creates the need for further marketing (additional costs). You're assuming all of your website users will install it. Conclusion: You have a better opportunity to convert leads via a single Responsive Site.

Amir, Are you simply taking this stance because your platform ISN'T responsive? You've made some broad assumptions with your breakdown of RWD which appear to be more of anxiety heightening type of statements than anything. Having worked with both type of platforms from different vendors, at the end of the day the performance of the site will be directly affected by the ability to optimize effectively, the quality of the content & most importantly, the merchandising efforts - not because of it being AWD or RWD. Other factors include overall website support, local directory optimization & other customization features - and more. Dealers should be making their decisions on those factors, not merely based on whether the platform is adaptive or responsive.

Great post Eric! Exactly... Although, I can see why Amir would say that, in that he sells some form of Mobile Site development. LOL! ;-)

Interesting argument, if seemingly faulty assumptions. The scale still weighs heavily towards a well-designed, mobile-first responsive design. You've made some strong points though. I'd like to see more real data. For instance, show me the same site under both designs. You claim to know the reason Amazon, Wal*Mart, and Zappos haven't switched to a multi-device environment. I thought it was because of the success of their app-based strategy. Can you provide some sources for your info?

"Your mobile experience will be slower for your visitors. The amount of time people spend on your mobile site will be less and the number of VDPs viewed by a visitor will be less Return visits will be reduced" Where is the data from that supports the above claims? I see the graph for the slower load times but where is this data from? How many sites were surveyed? How was this collected?There doesn't seem to be any hard data in this article to support your "hard facts" - sounds like your/your company's opinion. Would love to see any data you have collected.

All you say is 100% correct. It comes down to how committed is the dealer and the marketer. If you want a simple low cost solution and your number 1 goal is not the maximum conversion that can be had. Then RWD is the answer. However if you want maximum opportunities and advanced digital strategies then it will take more work and your tools of choice will be those of Apple, Amazon and the leading e-commerce businesses... which is not rwd. I say this based on facts, experience and research. I can also say based on fact that our firm spends more in search, display, Retargeting and video per client so we test everything. I am confident rwd or the like will be the tool of choice eventually but presently it's not. I wish it was since it would cut our production time and labor cost by 50%. Therefore we would increase profits. We can just not recommended rwd yet with our clients best interest. Paul Potratz Www.PPADV.com

Alexander Lau, Here are some responses to your comment: SPEED Please send over some of the responsive sites that you are running and we will conduct some tests on the overall speed. Particularly our mobile conversion team looks at the speed it takes for a smartphone visitor to search inventory and find/view a car. If your responsive websites utilize traditional browser "paging" then they will likely significantly slower due to the page tear down and rebuild. SOCIAL SHARING Social share buttons on a mobile web app (as in with our platform) reference a traditional "crawlable" page. This sharing issue you mention does not exist if handled correctly. REDIRECTION Server-side redirection is preferred. This type of redirection has no real impact on site load time as the redirect occurs on the server-side (ie: almost instantaneously). SAVING RESOURCES WITH RESPONSIVE? In just about all cases, a responsive website will utilize more bandwidth and more resources per visitor than an optimized mobile web platform. I am not sure why you would be concerned with saving Google’s resources (for their web crawler). The only resource that should really matter is the mobile visitor’s bandwidth. Responsive sites will require more bandwidth which will slow down the entire browsing experience. RETURN VISITORS Higher per-visitor conversion rates means more return visitors (a general rule to consider when looking at conversions and return visitor rates). If smartphone visitors like and engage your platform more, they are inevitably (on average) more likely to return. Our data has come from comparisons between our platform and most of the major providers that we have data for; however, we would be glad to run some A/B tests on some of the dealers you work with so that you can see for yourself. STANDALONE APPLICATION? I think you may be confused as to what we mean by an optimized mobile web app. There is no installation with this type of platform, this is simply a mobile website that has been built like a native app - see our demo from your smartphone for an example.

@Alexander - You nailed it in both of your posts. This is a thinly veiled attempt to sell us the idea that car dealers need a mobile app. Amir lost me with this quote: "Unfortunately, for the digital automotive industry, a responsive website is not the solution a dealership needs; it is just the next snake oil in a long line of promises that "will work." The snake oil in this article is that dealers need an app. Car dealer apps fall into the category that do not solve a customers problem. Read this great article published today "Why Nobody Uses Your App"http://www.fastcodesign.com/3033092/googles-6-reasons-why-nobody-uses-your-app?partner=rss

Thank you for all of the comments! To Mr. Bill Simmons and others who have commented about a mobile app. Please note that I am absolutely NOT advocating dealers purchase a native mobile app. In fact, we are staunch advocates against dealers purchasing a native mobile application for their dealership. To clarify again, we are talking about mobile websites (that are available and loaded in a smartphone browser). There seems to be a big confusion here - again please visit the demo see what we are talking about.

One thing I see all of my comrades who are passionate about marketing do (I'll include myself in this group) is overthink the consumer experience. We try to find balance between branding our business and connecting with people using the most relevant platform to date. The problem is we all get caught up in insignificant details and fail to meet the basic needs of someone who is shopping our websites. We've become so absorbed with our own self-importance that we fail to understand that our website visitors could care less about reading why our business might be the best. These visitors are shopping a dozen dealers. Give them something visually unique yet efficient to find what they are looking for and people will remember you. That's what I like about the demo site from this post. It's unique, simple, and easy to navigate. Now if we can extend that same out of the box simplicity to our sales process, we all might be able to retire somewhere on the good side of 80 years old Keep in mind...I'm purely looking at this from the viewpoint of someone navigating this website as a shopper. I'm not taking into consideration everything it takes to get someone to find the site or land on relevant pages through search.

I really appreciate well-written and researched articles and I can totally understand where you're coming from and why you're posting about it. I was there. It was less than a year ago that I promoted the concept of mobile and adaptive websites over responsive, but times have changed. The bottom line is this: mobile and adaptive are better than BAD responsive websites. I started promoting responsive over two years ago to my former company, practically begging them to head in that direction. Then, I switched gears because the responsive sites I saw in the automotive industry a year ago were horrendous. Now, I'm back supporting them because I have seen a handful of vendors who are doing it right. Most are still doing it wrong, but some that I've seen clearly outperform in traffic, leads, organic search rankings, Google PageSpeed Insights, and Webmaster Tool errors. Again, I'll agree with your points when comparing to the majority of responsive dealer websites that I've seen, but the ones that are coded properly are far better than any mobile website out there.

There are great comments here!

We have been on Dealerfire's RWD platform since April and it's been fantastic. Our traffic is up, our conversions are up and we have consistency across all platforms. The additional digital marketing strategy and efforts that we employ with our partners at DealerFire have been instrumental in our success as well. I think there are a lot of valid points on this thread and like any new technology or process, the bugs have to get worked out. Dealerfire has been on the ball in this respect, big time. With that said, Google is saying that responsive is the future and that is what they are planning around so there is added incentive to implement this technology. In the end, we've been very happy with our decision and our Responsive websites from Dealerfire.

I'm unsure of the basis for many of the comments supporting Amir's claims, since he has absolutely no hard data as evidence. JD Rucker brings up an extremely good point. At WorldDealer, we struggled with moving on to RWD, we were fine with AWD for a number of different reasons (mostly from a resource standpoint and unbeknownst clients). I've done much research in order to justify the move and it's paying off handsomely for us and our clients. I'll gladly be your Huckleberry! Fine and dandy... I'll throw myself to your test for Kelly Automotive in the Allentown & Bethlehem area and Findlay Toyota in the Las Vegas region. Kelly Automotive (93/100) Desktop @ 1.9 seconds = http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/cmQGRn/http://kellycar.com/ Mobile @ 4.5 seconds = http://www.websitetest.com/ui/tests/53c7d8a70c53723b36000036 Findlay Toyota (81/100) Desktop @ 6.1 seconds = http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/diQJfT/http://findlaytoyota.com Mobile @ 2.3 seconds = http://www.websitetest.com/ui/tests/53c7d0f48b5f0203f800001d/samples/53c7d193f5c65e19750006ad I'll gladly take both of those scores (regardless of what metrics they are using in their comparative method), considering the amount of data that has to be loaded on an average automotive retail site. Shall I do more for you? Remember, applications like a chat mechanism and Google Analytics (somewhat of a hypocrisy, because of Google's site speed ranking variable, within their overall algorithmic equation), slows down any site. Website providers should be using passive analytics, which requires no need to load scripts or tags (something we are working on specifically for the automotive retail vertical), but that's an entirely different subject. In fact, the mobile site would have loaded quicker, if not for the chat mechanism. IMO, that shouldn't be on the mobile site, I showed in the above example. At least this claptrap of an article shined our error to me. Additionally, arguing with the likes of Google...? You're going to end up losing that battle, each and every time. I've no absolute data to back this up, however, the likelihood of Googlebot ranking responsive sites ahead of websites using, what I like to term as "chopped up" code and 3rd party buggery, is highly unlikely. Regardless of what Matt Cutts and the like proclaim in their blogs, it is my educated guess they're moving entirely in this directional pattern. Amir, I believe you're arguing for the sake of your own wares, as a few individuals and I have highlighted. That's all good and fine, I get the strategy. However, don't act as if RWD is "The Wrong Choice for Dealers." That's a rubbish statement and it should, in fact, be ignored. A

Hello Rebecca, I would be a hypocrite to state numbers. I do not have definitive proof, but any 3rd party script generally causes a site to load slower. Granted, there are a load of variables when it comes to total site load, as previously mentioned, but a well-designed chat application isn't necessarily something that kills the overall load time (or what is perceived as good benchmark load time = which can be argued, especially for automotive sites), but that's the general rule of thumb. In the Findlay instance above, below are two of the things that slowed down the load, which makes sense. Plus, a bunch of slider / carousel images that weren't saved for web properly. chat.js www.clientconnexion.com/clients/findl… Funny, the Google API @ https://translate.googleapis.com/translate_static/css/translateelement.css is what slowed it down the most.

Just for fun, another RWD site at Kelly Nissan of Route 33: Desktop at 2.3 seconds = http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/bQiaqf/http://kellynissanofroute33.com/ Mobile @ 3.745 = http://www.websitetest.com/ui/tests/53c805118b5f0251df000005

Put aside the content of the original post. Has anyone tried navigating the sites mentioned in the comments in the mindset of a shopper? They are clunky, completely non-engaging, and I found myself wanting instantly leave. Keep in mind my own website is no gem either. Regardless of OP's commentary, he has developed a site that is more effective in engaging a shopper. I'm looking at strict shopper experience. Amir's site has it's flaws, but it has the foundation of something I personally would prefer to navigate. Simplicity is an art form and it is lost in automotive marketing. WE ARE ALL TRYING TOO HARD. Nobody cares about why so-and-so dealer is better than the other. Very rarely are people going to their local dealer's SEO model pages to read why the Explorer is better than the Grand Cherokee. We are all guilty of over-complicating the user experience to game the SEO system or overbrand ourselves. Myself included! I've spent countless hours creating SEO content and have sung my own dealership's praises on my website more times than I can count. I have to chalk up the simplicity and logical navigation on Amir's site. It looks like it would almost be usable on an Android wear device. I want to see some website companies step back from the minutiae and deliver a solid user experience that brands my business and executes the basic functions important to a local dealership website. Once you can promise that, I'm a customer for life!

And another for Stuckey Ford Subaru: Desktop @ 4.06 seconds = http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/bIJ56U/http://stuckeyforyou.com/ Mobile @ 6.0 seconds = http://www.websitetest.com/ui/tests/53c818750c5372151400001e (however, that's an average taken from many devices and it's only high because of the slider on the iPhone5, which we will fix soon)

@Larry, unsure what examples you're referring to here, but we user test all of our sites, before launching, and continuously A / B, Multivariate and Split test as we update. Beside, that's your subjective opinion. The sites we've produced have been so dumbed down, it's crazy. However, dealers will fight with reason and logic, based upon user testing. Therefore, many times we end jamming too much content in places it doesn't belong. That's an issue for any website provider. Now, I'm all for a thread on your offshoot subject, if you want to start one on Instructional Design or User-Centered Design or User-experience in relation to automotive retail interfaces, etc. Instructional Design = the practice of creating instructional experiences which make the acquisition of knowledge and skill more efficient, effective, and appealing. The process consists broadly of determining the current state and needs of the learner, defining the end goal of instruction, and creating some "intervention" to assist in the transition. OR User-centered design (UCD) = process (not restricted to interfaces or technologies) in which the needs, wants, and limitations of end users of a product, service or process are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process. User-centered design can be characterized as a multi-stage problem solving process that not only requires designers to analyse and foresee how users are likely to use a product, but also to test the validity of their assumptions with regard to user behavior in real world tests with actual users. OR User experience = a person's behaviors, attitudes, and emotions about using a particular product, system or service. User experience includes the practical, experiential, effective, meaningful and valuable aspects of human-computer interaction and product ownership. In addition, SEO comments. Content has to be intelligible. However, the way to get your content to perform (based upon research and analysis), etc. is an art in itself. Write all the intelligible content possible, but if one makes assumptions, sometimes presumptions, on what one feels or thinks will rank, without analysis, you're doing it incorrectly. What does Google want? They want relevant, real content on the internet that people want to read and tell other people about. If Google doesn’t bring you the most relevant content when you search, they aren’t doing their job. So by definition, even the word Search Engine Optimization (SEO) means to “game” the Google search engines (and others) to get your valuable content ranked higher than it would be if left alone to the forces of the Web. The bottom line is that all external SEO efforts are counterfeit other than one: Writing, designing, recording, or videoing real and relevant content that benefits those who search. SEO of any kind is pursued by gaming the system. There is nothing “natural” about any form of SEO. The fundamental concept of SEO is exploiting a flaw in a search engine’s ranking algorithm. The difference between white and black hat tactics is merely a function of where Google decides to draw a line, and this line is at least somewhat arbitrary. Google's goal is to confuse search engine optimization (SEO) efforts and to uncover aggressive SEO techniques through delaying, or obfuscating results from SEO changes being made.

On the SEO note, and maybe I am overstating the obvious, but you had better have an SEO CRM that measures Global, Local and Mobile performance data, because they are very different. RWD has skyrocketed client mobile numbers and conversions.This includes leads captured through long-tail keyword attacks through various landing pages, not just the home page. Such as VDPs, showroom pages, blog pages, etc. The path analysis doesn't lie. With nearly 15,000 conversion in 60 days, in a small market, RWD works very well IMO. http://i.imgur.com/MXJvUb7.jpg

Yes my opinions are subjective...not too dissimilar to the user base that you job is to engage. I navigated each site mentioned in this post just to experience it and try to find specific inventory. I usually found myself leaving very quickly. You are exemplifying everything I'm talking about as a marketer. You are so caught up in defending the small details, but try using your "Car Finder". I attempted to find a pre-owned vehicle on the Stuckey site. Click the vehicles drop down, select "preowned" and then the drop down still says "new vehicles". Next click "choose a make", then "pre-owned vehicles" appears on the drop down, but the vehicle i select isn't showing. It's frustrating from a user perspective. That is quite simply not subjective...most people will not enjoy what it takes to find inventory on this site. I understand why you may be defensive. I'm not trying to attack your ability to develop website since there are some great elements to your site. I quite simply find it difficult to get to specific inventory on any of the sites mentioned by the community. I can't stand even navigating my own mobile site! Don't take any of this personally. It's my opinion and not backed by any real data. It's simply observations made from a purely user standpoint. I'm an avid consumer and have a great feel for where the market is going.

Larry, actually I highly appreciate your comments. Albeit subjective, your opinion has value, because you are a user and have given me insight to an issue. Personally, I do not design that interface and will make a suggestion to our project manager. You're right, IMO. The usability could be made much better and there's always room to improve. We try and use user data in order to make decisions, which is logical. I suppose I took offense to this article, just in general, because we have produced RWD sites that do in fact convert. Perhaps we are among a small group (automotive website providers) that are successfully using Bootstrap, Skeleton and Foundation. I have no idea... DealerFire and DealerOn have nice platforms as well. Here is a nice responsive framework overview @ http://responsive.vermilion.com/compare.php, if anyone is interested...?

@Alexander...I will say I could never do what you do. You can have a magnificent platform, but then us, the dealers get involved and want to add things eventually making the site unusable. Source: I'VE DONE THIS. The article is definitely inflammatory and not backed up with raw data. I hijacked the discussion because I identified one element that I enjoyed on Amir's site and that is the simplicity and inventory navigation. What I ultimately want to accomplish is for all of us to step back from our keyboards and think like real customers. It's hard to do when we dig into our analytics and dissect every keystroke that happens on our sites. Let's all keep on innovating shit and not forget to create a stellar user experience.

Agreed, I also think Amir's taxonomy is usable and navigation is very clean = quality. Plus, if he has clients converting, there is no sense in reinventing the wheel, just because everyone else is doing RWD. In essence, if it's not broken forget about fixing it.It's not that RWD fails to do the same. We just haven't put it into place, as of yet. There are definitely a bunch of RWD sites that have outstanding menu systems. Mind you, frameworks like Bootstrap and Foundation are being updated and often. Meaning, this is just the tip of the iceberg. BTW, we can all agree to disagree and still be friends. A lot of the time, static text gives an incorrect tone. :-)

I suppose we see the end result of this article folks. BTW, Paul Potratz is wrong as well, his comment also lacks data and statistics to support this extremely weak claim.

aw, DealerFire was at MozCon? Wish I had known, we could have hung out and chatted auto...

I’m happy to see that this article has generated some healthy conversation! To clarify, Car Pursuit's sole focus is to design, test, and research mobile web technologies and mobile-local advertising techniques to ultimately give dealerships the edge. This article was written to simply provide some insight into what our team has found through almost 3 years of conversion rate optimization testing. Using our own mobile-focused analytics framework, we are able to constantly A/B test, tweak, and modify our platform to improve overall lead & call generation. Of course we still have a long way to go; however, throughout our evolution we have learned a lot as we run comparisons with other mobile web providers. The research and side-by-side testing we conduct gives us a lot of data and insight into how mobile customers shop and what they need to ultimately convert into a lead. We did our best to not make a "thinly-veiled" sales article because anyone who is interested in more information will likely ask. But, we do have a product and a perspective that are linked together as do any vendor and this is the first article we've written that features our product heavily. Ultimately, we just want dealerships to recognize the mobile/desktop divide and give more thought into their digital purchase rather than accepting "the next big thing." We've chosen to build a stand-alone mobile web platform (not native app) rather than a responsive site because our work in automotive as well as various other industries has given us the evidence we need to verify its superiority when it comes to leads/calls per unique visitor, time on site, return visitors, and increased service scheduling usage. Our argument is from a lead-generation perspective; mobile traffic is higher than ever before and requires dealerships to have a mobile-specific offering in order to capture as many quality leads as possible. Throwing out all the technical talk, common sense would tell us that: 1. Mobile customers are at a different stage in the buying process than a desktop user and thus have different needs (different information, different promotions, and even different inventory suggestions based on shopping habits). 2. Mobile screens are smaller and the internet speeds are inconsistent. Anything that will make the process of navigating, finding directions, making calls, and submitting leads much faster will cause people to stick around longer, return more, and ultimately submit more leads. 3. If your mobile platform content is directly tied to your desktop platform, there is only so much you can do to customize your offering and deliver content to the user that is mobile-specific (without an on-staff IT developer or overly catering software vendor). 4. Let's be honest, your company blog is not as important to a mobile customer. It’s great for SEO and it’s great for helping customers who are deep in the research stage but mobile users are not looking for blog posts. If your site were only a blog, I would be recommending a responsive system rather than stand-alone. 5. If you are looking for the simplest way to just have a website and a mobile site, responsive is an easy option. If you are interested in generating more leads from a specific type of shopper, it will require a more specific solution. SPEED TESTS FOR MR. ALEXANDER LAU Thanks for sending the data over! As I mentioned, initial load time is actually only one of the factors to consider when looking at a websites overall speed. It is VERY important to consider the navigation speed to search through the inventory. With that said we did run a comparison of our platform using the same tools you mentioned. It appears that our platform does in fact load more than 10 times faster than all of the examples you provided: CARPURSUIT DEMO PLATFORM RESULTS Frontend Time To Display = 338 ms Frontend Time To Interact = 643 ms Total Download = 0.328 megabytes Yotta Score = 99th percentile - http://www.websitetest.com/ui/tests/53c9491a8b5f02441b000012 THE RESULTS YOU POSTED Stuckey Ford Subaru Frontend Time To Display = 6445 ms Frontend Time To Interact = 9978 ms Total Download = 2.8 megabytes Yotta Score = 34th percentile - http://www.websitetest.com/ui/tests/53c818750c5372151400001e ----------- Kelly Automotive Frontend Time To Display = 4467 ms Frontend Time To Interact = 8529 ms Total Download = 2.3 megabytes Yotta Score = 37th percentile - http://www.websitetest.com/ui/tests/53c7d8a70c53723b36000036 ----------- Findlay Toyota Frontend Time To Display = 5318 ms Frontend Time To Interact = 7009 ms Total Download = 2.3 megabytes Yotta Score = 36th percentile - http://www.websitetest.com/ui/tests/53c7d8a70c53723b36000036 ----------- Kelly Nissan Frontend Time To Display = 3745 ms Frontend Time To Interact = 6973 ms Total Download = 1.8 megabytes Yotta Score = 38th percentile - http://www.websitetest.com/ui/tests/53c805118b5f0251df000005 ---------- You can see that all of the responsive site examples you provided have an initial load of over 1.8 - 2.8 megabytes compared to our platform that loads with only 328 kilobytes. This is actually in line with the points that were made in the article about speed issues when it comes to responsive design.

You keep talking about the shopping habits of automotive customers, yet have no data to back up your claims. Lead generation, our clients see a higher ROI than they did using AWD, which included stand alone mobile sites. That is being measured daily. You can do everything in RWD that can be done with a separate mobile website. It ABSOLUTELY can be customized according to any and all requirements. It's not rocket science to run A / B, Multivariate and Split testing on any digital interface, if it's being measured properly. That has nothing to do with the difference between Mobile and RWD sites. Remember, you'll be paying more to have a desktop and mobile version. That's only the cost factor. As for the speed differentials you've mentioned, that's fine. The percentiles are what they are, but remember, most automotive sites are in that same bracket and frankly most are much worse. There was a recent discussion at http://internetsales20group.com, on this very discussion and the reality, most of the larger sites flunked, both on desktop and mobile. I will take 2 to 3 seconds of load time, any day of the week. Those are 3rd party scripts bogging down the load speed, as I had mentioned previously, not the framework. Therefore, your test speed argument is poorly supported. Additionally, CSS frameworks like Bootstrap, Foundation and Skeleton are being constantly updated and that only benefits the likes of RWD. It's only a matter of time before many of the issues that cause minor glitches in RWD sites are fixed, such as far too large CSS files being reduced on load, etc. It's out there now actually... http://www.sitepoint.com/complete-guide-reducing-page-weight. Pre-processors such as Sass, LESS and Stylus can do the hard work for you. Build tools including Grunt.js or Gulp can automate your workflow or, if you’d prefer a GUI, Koala provides a free cross-platform application, etc. Are you saying mobile version site content isn't important...? There is an entirely separate requirement for Mobile SEO. Are you taking that into consideration? Another area of great ROI for our clients. Example: http://i.imgur.com/MXJvUb7.jpg. Furthermore, you cannot make a blanket statement such as "Why Responsive Websites Are The Wrong Choice For Dealers" without absolute proof and you have very little to no data to back up your claim. Every site is built differently, with varying amounts of media, plugins and code that need to be loaded, etc. Some of that content is mandated by OEMs and dealers that force the content on site.

I have to agree with Mr. Lau in that there are some strong anti-responsive arguments being purported here with little or no real data to substantiate them. A client of ours was transitioned to a responsive design mid-May, and the results have been both fast and fabulous. June 2014 saw, for the newly-designed client, a year-over-year increase of 60% more traffic overall and 63% more unique visitors, with no increase in bounce rate nor lowered time on site. With respect to mobile site traffic, the responsive design garnered a 385% increase - over 4,000 additional visitors/month year-over-year, not simply reallocated traffic (as non-mobile traffic increased as well). As 65% of auto shoppers begin their path to purchase on a smartphone, we looked at changes in SEM results, and were pleased to find a 480% increase in conversions with a lower cost per click for the month of June compared to April. A responsively-designed website is slower to load only if the designer of the website did not follow best practices in file sizes and hosting... No return visitors? On the contrary, responsive web design opens the door to new levels of mobile retargeting across platforms, which is shown to increase conversion rates by up to 229%. Finally, as 98% of a dealership's prospective customers will use an average of three different mobile devices within the same day on their car search, RWD takes into account rule #1 of marketing - reduce customer burden. The claim that dealerships believe RWD is better because of uniform content across all devices because of easier navigation, easier back-end management and optimal SEO are, in fact, very true... but the content is NOT uniform. A properly designed responsive website, with no additional load time, will appear exactly as a mobile site should, and subsequently as a tablet site should. Arguing that a RWD is a viable solution only in lieu of sufficient resources to build a separate mobile site is, in essence, an attempt to upsell and encourage dealers to spend additional money on a separate website they don't need. Furthermore, there is a vast difference between a mobile-specific website and a mobile app, a vast dichotomy which seems to have been glossed over in this argument. One can NOT use "mobile website" and "app" interchangeably. The truth is that unless a dealership has already procured the undying loyalty of a customer, that app is never going to be downloaded. Apps did recently gain a new purpose in the automotive vertical - one of driver customization in relation to the release of Google Auto and its partnership with Microsoft Sync. Until widespread adoption of that technology, however, people download "apps" for lifestyle reasons, apps that will be used on a long term basis for personal or professional reasons... not for the relatively short-term duration of the car buying process. How sadly misleading for car dealers! Every argument in this blog is reliant NOT in any fact whatsoever, but in only the worst-case scenario presumption that their responsive website would be built by an entirely incompetent provider and thus have the problems asserted therein.

There is a tornado of unsubstantiated claims flying around this entire discussion. I'm beginning to see this website devolve into a platform for vendors to discredit each other's product and paint a rosy picture for their own. I have seen very little conversation from people on the dealer level. It would be great to see what dealers and internet directors have to say about this topic because it's extremely relevant. Everyone is only telling a piece of the truth. For example...Camille, you state your client witnessed a 63% increase in unique visitors. What is the source of this traffic? Organic? We see an uptick of about 3k visitors to our site in the period of time that our Pandora ad runs. That has zero to do with our website platform. What other external factors may be causing this increase? Share the URL of one of your responsive sites and I will give an honest end-user assessment the site's ability to capture an engaged buyer. Yes...there is a degree of subjectivity to my opinion, but I'm extremely keyed into consumer demand, trends, and know where the market is going. On that note...any dealers or dealer level marketing peeps want to chime in???

Hey Larry, Here is my two cents: There are horribly designed responsive sites, and there are horribly designed adaptive sites. The quality of the site is dependent on so many factors that anyone suggesting one is better than the other is either: a) selling the one they claim is better b) doesn't have enough information You could refute or assist any of these arguments if you truly worked the website. You could take a slow, clunky website and turn it into a cash cow by focusing on conversion optimization. Or you could take an optimally designed website and ruin it with an abundance of dead site links. No two websites are on a level playing field so comparing these two options is like comparing Almond Butter to Cashew Butter. They are both delicious. How about we all take this stance: response or adaptive are both GOOD. As long as you aren't behind either option, you are in good standing. Now where I see the future is predictive web design (ie. what Haystak is doing. That stuff is just plain crazy.)

@Larry Doremus Jr last post is the best one in this whole thread. Kudos @Amir Shah for writing the article. There is never such a thing as full right or full wrong when writing about technology evolution (my friend JDR said a few years ago that G+ was going to overtake FB, I still think the world of him even though he missed that one) and you knew that you were going to take shots. Thank you for starting it. Here are my 2 cents about this: "Site speed, designs, graphics, etc" are not a major concern in the long run. Vendors will figure that out. "Do you have data" Lots of people asking for data to substantiate claims. No one has enough comparative data. At best we have a few sites that provide too small of a-biased-sampling. "Google says..." that you do whatever they say because in the end there is something in it for them. I expected more from this crowd. Do what works, not what Google says. Google wants to take you in the path of more revenue for them. "Companies don't like responsive designs because they have not invested on it." Not true. Quite the opposite. As a matter of fact I would warn you to be careful and not jump too fast into a company offering responsive because right now is the shinny object. We have a responsive system, but it is too early of a stage for me to know that it will do better that our adaptive system which we have fine tuned for the last 2 years. I would look at your conversion rate before making any changes. If you are converting at 4% in correlation to your market (and remember that the numbers change depending on market aggressiveness, content, PPC, etc) ask yourself; where will responsive take me? To me responsive seems a choice and perhaps a good one to a dealer looking to risk in exchange of any improvement no matter how small. A performing dealer with probably many other areas to improve anyway, should wait 6-12 months as see how the systems grow. I have no doubt we will all be using some sort of responsive system by next year, the question is whether you are willing to go thru the grind or wait for the code to be perfected.

Who said there aren't stable RWD systems out there now? This argument on speed, it's silly. Our client competitor websites aren't any faster than ours and from the looks of how our RWD sites rank, it's really an inconsequential variable. That goes for Global, Local and Mobile indexing and I can show proof, if you'd like. The one thing that makes me laugh about the supporters for ADW, they all still sell a version of it. Vested interest, anyone....??? o_O Actually, JD Rucker is correct in his assessment and I agreed with him at the time. Facebook is going to die an ugly death and not too far off, Google+ is going to always drive indexing results. Facebook is nothing but a mere advertising platform now. Organic reach = ZERO!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-rampton/business-mobile-responsive-design_b_5267077.html But why does Google prefer responsive design? For starters, it's more efficient for Google to bot crawl the site and then index and organize all the content that is online. The reason for this is that with responsive design, all sites have just one URL and the same HTML across all devices. When a business has both a mobile site and desktop site, there will be a different URL and different HTML for each. This forces Google to crawl and index multiple versions of the same exact site. Also, when there is just one website and URL, it's much easier for users to share, engage and interact with the content on that site as compared to a site that has different pages for mobile and desktop users. Google is a fan of that as well. Why? Because what if someone shared a mobile site on a social media outlet and one of their connections viewed that mobile site on their desktop? That viewer would then be viewing a less than optimal site because it was intended for mobile. This makes the user unhappy.

We just launched a bunch of them in the Las Vegas area @ http://hendersonkia.com, http://courtesyimports.com, http://countoncourtesymazda.com, http://hendersonmitsubishi.com.

The sort of propaganda that is being used about responsive dealer websites is very similar to the propaganda used a few years ago when website providers were saying that their Flash websites were superior to ours. Have you seen any Flash websites lately? https://www.facebook.com/WorldDealer

Great information! Very timely.

Hey Chris...great meeting you! Many dealerships have been content with a standard mobile site and PPC as their "mobile initiative". There are a lot of opportunities for better engagement and that's what we're focusing on. I hope to chat with you more about this sometime.

Yes! The PPC is not something I have a lot of interest in so I would like to learn more.

Great article! Many people don't understand the exciting opportunities that are out there for dealerships in the mobile digital marketing world. Hopefully this will help give them a start to their brand's individual mobile road maps in 2014.

@Chris Murray...let's chat sometime next week if you have some time. There is a huge need for more cost-effective and targeted methods for mobile advertising. I'd love to introduce you to our work and get some of your feedback.

@Shelby...Thanks! You're right. Our industry is not always quick to engage in new technology and opportunities. I feel that offering a more focused approach to the mobile niche has allowed us to learn and build a lot more than the average ad company. 2014 should be a big year for mobile. Let's connect soon.

Responsive Website Design is what you should be investing in, per the recommendation of Google @ https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/details.

Great information! Very timely.

Hey Chris...great meeting you! Many dealerships have been content with a standard mobile site and PPC as their "mobile initiative". There are a lot of opportunities for better engagement and that's what we're focusing on. I hope to chat with you more about this sometime.

Yes! The PPC is not something I have a lot of interest in so I would like to learn more.

Great article! Many people don't understand the exciting opportunities that are out there for dealerships in the mobile digital marketing world. Hopefully this will help give them a start to their brand's individual mobile road maps in 2014.

@Chris Murray...let's chat sometime next week if you have some time. There is a huge need for more cost-effective and targeted methods for mobile advertising. I'd love to introduce you to our work and get some of your feedback.

@Shelby...Thanks! You're right. Our industry is not always quick to engage in new technology and opportunities. I feel that offering a more focused approach to the mobile niche has allowed us to learn and build a lot more than the average ad company. 2014 should be a big year for mobile. Let's connect soon.

Responsive Website Design is what you should be investing in, per the recommendation of Google @ https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/details.